this ideology reveals itself in other ways too - in fact, in the street art community a very sharp distinction is made between tagging (pichação) and graffiti art (grafite).

pichação comes from the portuguese word for tar (piche), which was the medium of choice for early taggers.

and though views on the incentives behind pichação tend toward the more stereotypical ideas about graffiti in general such as rebellion, vandalism, gangs, and name recognition, it has also produced an authentically brazilian product, characterized by the stark, angular and cryptic characters used, nearly always in black.   

ostensibly as a result of commonly-held notions about pichação being coupled with its visually displeasing appearance, it is viewed with disdain by the authorities and many graffiti artists.